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Friday, November 23, 2012

Self-improvement: Discovering Martha Beck

Discovering Martha Beck

Written by Sharon Lennox-Infante
Wednesday, 21 November 2012

New York Times best-selling author Martha Beck is a life coach. She has a doctorate (several degrees, actually) from Harvard University, where she deviated from the typical career path of psychotherapist to the ahead-of-the-curve occupation of life coach – the difference being that therapists tend to treat people with disorders, whereasa life coach tends to treat healthy people who just want to make their lives better.
Beck's two diet books, “The Joy Diet” (Crown, 2003) and “The Four Day Win” (Rodale, 2007), were so surprising and deeply funny that I felt compelled to talk about them to anyone who would listen.

Beck mimics our inner voice – “Why are you so damn fat?” – and plots a course to change that dialogue.

Unlike most diet books that promote an eating (or not eating) plan, Beck’s approach is to leave that part up to the individual.

Her value-add is providing insight and exercises (the mental kind) that help the reader understand and internalize the change.

Instead of further depleting an already-deprived and often self-loathing dieter, she actually adds helpful information to make success more likely, with quite a few laughs and self-deprecating personal examples along the way.

She has been to diet hell, and returned to suggest a better path. Her writing is positive, practical and downright inspiring.

The heart of her message is that change happens through love and compassion – for ourselves and others.

Sharon Lennox-Infante, contributing editor for Book Buzz, is a Los Altos resident.

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Jennifer believes we live in the garden of Eden and I believe that we are destroying it. Our saving grace is within ourselves, our faith, and our mindfulness. We need to make a conscious effort to respect and preserve all life.

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My Blogs have been like a second hard drive to me.

My Blogs have been used as a second hard drive, in case of crashes in equipment. Google is a safe place to store information collected while surfing the WWW. If any content does not seem to adhere to Creative Commons Rules and you want it removed, please contact me to have it removed from the blog. Everything is true to the best of my knowledge.